Beyond the Fade
by GretaPrewett
Summary: When she enters the Fade will she finally accept what he's been telling her all this time...And will he succeed in getting her back when she does? BB


**I guess I want to write a one shot for each genre. That's the only way I can explain how this came to me. Yes, a touch of the supernatural and some drama but it doesn't end bad thankfully. So yeah, read on and tell me if I just have to try my luck in another genre... (Yes, the Fade and its mists -but only that really- is shamelessly borrowed -I'm using the lighter term for this- from a best-selling brilliant author. Whoever knows and guesses who it is, get not only a cookie but maybe another story with as well with the brilliant band of Brothers I love.)  
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* * *

She was walking through a mist. A haze so tangible and insubstantial at once, she felt like she was flowing. 

White covered everything, even the sky above her and not knowing where she was or where that ended or begun she kept walking; flowing with the wind really. It wasn't a conscious action because she knew without checking that she couldn't feel anything of her body.

She couldn't remember what happened before she came here, all she knew was that she had to keep forward until she reached whatever was ahead…And she knew something was ahead. She didn't question it She just felt so.

At long last or soon enough the mists parted and a figure was illuminated from beyond. The out line extended arms in a welcoming gesture…and that's when Temperance stopped. Wisps of auburn hair were highlighted in the edges of the person, billowing long tresses outwards. The scent that reached her was the ocean… she knew that much. Sounds of the waves crashing on the shore and notes…high-pitched notes between the splashing.

Dolphins.

"Mom?" She question, not knowing whether she had opened her mouth or not.

The figure spread arms wider, expectantly, yet Temperance remained still.

This could not be happening. Everything she was taught, everything she had know in her life rejected the present situation. In her life…But this wasn't life was it? The realization hit her immediately.

This was death.

The other side, the one she didn't believe in was her present location…if she could name it such. The sounds of the ocean never ceased, the figure never wavered and Temperance yet stood still. She wasn't afraid…she knew as much. Calmness had settled over her since the very beginning. Everything else was a memory, a very painful one.

She liked being here…the endless feel of this place named it home in her soul. This was as it forever should be. She should have believed Booth when he talked of heaven. She now knew he had been right about that…and about God…because Him…she could feel Him everywhere, all around her and inside too.

For a moment –or an age- she let herself breath Him in. Finally relishing the thought that she was never alone and never had been. It all made sense now. She should have believed Booth.

Booth.

She looked on to the figure again which hadn't moved. Cocking her head she considered everything she was experiencing. For all it's rightness this wasn't what she wanted. At the thought of his name the painful memories had become images of her life, feeling her soul with longing and loss. Images of him...the squints... Russ.

The dolphins' cries faded, the sound of waves falling to the background where before it drowned the silence. A pain jolted her body, so unexpected in the peace she felt before, it made her take a step back. The figure dropped her arms in understanding.

"I can't," was all she said and the next step back was willfully taken. She was walking back towards the pain, she knew, but that wasn't all there was behind.

She flowed again, the mists thickening, hiding the figure, and then darkness and pain came.

And she welcomed them both.

* * *

He was in hell… 

There was no other word for what Seeley Booth was going through. The white hospital walls around him were crumbling down in his eyes. He could just make them out through the blur of tears. The steady rush of blood of his pulse echoed in his ears like footsteps of demons leading him to hell. The sounds of people milling around him were screams…or the screams were his own, inside his mind.

This couldn't be happening. Why was the world still spinning? Why did his life keep going if he had failed in the one thing he could have sworn he was born to do?

Familiar voices floated towards him but petulantly he closed his ears to them. His face muscles felt sore from clenching his teeth, but then…he wasn't clenching them right now, was he? No, his mouth was relaxed, releasing a seemingly never-ending moan.

Moments or ages later, he really wasn't sure, his mind registered his surroundings again. Not that it did any good to him. He was sitting on the hospital floor, just outside her room. The doctors had been rushing in when he was coming back from getting another cup of coffee. One of the millions he felt like he had consumed the past day and a half.

Approaching the door quickly -he remembered it like a dream now; _a nightmare_- he had heard the endless _beep_ of the heart-support…rushing feet inside her room…'_flat-lined'. _

The word had sent him reeling, stepping back as the coffee slipped from his nerveless fingers. He remembered screaming until his throat was raw, wanting to get inside but not moving as hands held him back, clawing at his body. He had fought them because they were keeping him from her. If he could just hold her, he knew he could make her come back. If he could just _hold her_.

A hand touched his shoulder and he saw Zack's face streaked with tears. The hand moved to the left, palm up, and Booth's own shaking on grabbed it. He was hauled up, but then the strength left him again and he slumped against the wall. Blindly he looked around, dimly registering Angela sobbing against Hodgins' shoulder, the man crying silently too. The one face he did see was the one in the very end of the hall.

The man was standing there with a baseball cap on his head, sunglasses in his hand, staring back at Booth. His gaze wasn't accusing and that hurt even more. Their father had told him to keep her safe and he had failed. _God_, how he had failed. Russ Brennan just stood some feet away, staring at him, and Booth could see the tears, the pain…and that terrible kinship that passed between them. The shared loss of a loved one.

At that thought his soul screamed in despair. Why was this happening? Was it God punishing him because he never grasped onto the one He had meant for him? He just let her float away but she stayed beside him, and then ran in front of him, taking his place in death. The memory of the bullet leaving the barrel sickened him.

But maybe he could get her back…maybe it wasn't over. It couldn't be over after all this time. Not now. Maybe if he could get to her, he could bring her back. Energy rushed through him again at the thought and he pushed against the wall walking towards her door again. He could get her back. Palming his gun he peeked through the door. Doctors were milling around. It might have been just a few minutes then. So, she couldn't be far. Maybe if he got to her in the other side he could bring her back. It didn't make sense, but it didn't matter anymore.

Just the sight of her pale skin turning white and the constant flat sound of her heartbeat had him feeling that it didn't matter if it did _not_ make sense. He had to get to her. His fingers closed around the butt of the gun and he was about to draw it out and just pull the trigger when there was a pause. It lasted a century...or a moment. Then a _beep _and another one…and another.

Each sound cleared his mind more, until all thoughts were back in place, common logic interpreting what he saw. Her chest was rising and then falling, not much but it was there. Her skin, translucent before, now grew rosier in each _beep. _His hand falling from his gun he pushed the door open, uncaring of the protests around him or the arms that tried to keep him from her. In a casual move he drew his gun and let it rest on his hip.

A silent but tangible threat.

After that the protests faded, and the people kept going. He hovered beside her bed, watching her, drinking in every motion she made, the sight silencing his desperation and feeding his hope. Tears blurred his vision again but he wiped at them impatiently. He shouldn't cry now. He was relieved but he shouldn't. He just wanted her to open her eyes and look at him.

So he waited. Nights passed, and then days. He didn't leave unless forced to, but then he still did everything so he could be allowed to get back to her, even if it was eating or sleeping.

And then just before he was physically removed one night from her side, he saw her body bending off the bed, heard her gasp as she opened her eyes and then the one word that fell from her lips.

"God!"

Awe and pain and gratitude all colored that one word into becoming a prayer. He jumped from his seat and stood beside her bed as always, hovering and looking at her face until her eyes turned to his. Her back fell slowly back against the bed, her focus on him unwavering. With a smile which he accepted as gratefully as food after starvation, she looked at him. Really looked at him, and he grabbed her hand to steady himself.

Those blue orbs were different. A knowledge in them; faith and hope mixed inside. What really brought him to his knees was love. He fell back onto the chair then, squeezing her hand in his, bowing his head to keep in the sobs that shook him from the inside out.

When he was ready he looked up again to see her watching him, the smile never leaving her face, silent tears streaming past it.

"I couldn't go to her. There was too much to lose."

He nodded mutely and when the hand left his only to come to his cheek, he leaned into the contact, closing his eyes against the feeling. Turning his face, knowing he was shaking he kissed her opened palm, silently accepting what she told him, the touch as good as a vow in her eyes and his. He opened his eyes to look at her again, making sure when she smiled this time it was from understanding of the feelings he offered freely. He smiled back when she returned the gift.

If her brother was there, Booth knew, that he would have said. Russ would have said that he had been waiting fifteen years for this.

_Joy_ was back.

And Booth had returned from the dead with her.

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**AN: I know, it was melodramatic, emotional and maybe a touch OOC on Booth but the feeling that I had to write him like that wouldn't go away.Hope you liked it anyway.**


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